History Ĭlearview operated in near secrecy until the release of The New York Times exposé titled "The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It" in January 2020. Clearview paid $250,000 in legal fees and agreed to limit its 20 billion facial photo database to government agencies. In May 2022 Clearview agreed to settle a 2020 lawsuit in the United States from the American Civil Liberties Union, which prohibited the sale of its facial recognition database to private individuals and businesses. Similar fines and deletion orders followed in Australia, France, and the United Kingdom. In March 2022 Clearview AI was fined $20M by the Italian Privacy Regulator ("Garante della privacy") in violation of the GDPR and has been required to delete all Italian records from its database. In 2021, Time magazine named Clearview AI as one of the 100 most influential companies of the year. A spokesperson for the company claimed its valuation to be more than $100 million. However, contrary to Clearview's claims that its service is sold only to law enforcement, a data breach in early 2020 revealed that numerous commercial organizations were on Clearview's customer list. Clearview sells access to its database to law enforcement agencies and has 3,100 active users including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security according to The Wall Street Journal. This was followed by similar actions by YouTube (via Google) and Facebook in February. In January 2020, Twitter sent a cease and desist letter and requested the deletion of all collected data. Multiple reports identified Clearview's association with far-right personas dating back to 2016, when the company claimed to sever ties with two employees. Founded by Hoan Ton-That and Richard Schwartz, the company maintained a low profile until late 2019, when its usage by law enforcement was reported on. The company's algorithm matches faces to a database of more than 20 billion images indexed from the Internet, including social media applications. “I would welcome the opportunity to engage in conversation with leaders and lawmakers so the true value of this technology which has proven so essential to law enforcement can continue to make communities safe,” he added.Clearview AI Software Clearview AI Search EngineĬlearview AI is an American facial recognition company, providing software to companies, law enforcement, universities, and individuals. “We collect only public data from the open internet and comply with all standards of privacy and law,” he said in a statement that was sent to MIT Technology Review. Hoan Ton-That, Clearview AI's CEO, said he is disappointed the ICO has “misinterpreted my technology and intentions.” “Clearview AI is fast becoming so toxic that no credible law enforcement agency or public authority or other company will want to work with them,” says Ella Jakubowska, who works on facial recognition and biometrics for European Digital Rights, a digital rights group. The EU’s influential data protection watchdogs have called for the bill to ban not only remote biometric identification in public, but the police use of web-scraped databases, such as Clearview AI’s. There is a possibility that the EU will go further. The current drafting of the text restricts the use of facial recognition by law enforcement unless it is to fight serious crimes, such as terrorism or kidnappings. Europe is working on an AI law that could ban the use of “real-time” remote biometric identification systems, such as facial recognition, in public places.
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